Jorge Lorenzo wins the British GP in an epic duel against Marquez

A record breaking crowd at Silverstone were treated to a spectacular and epic duel on Sunday when Jorge Lorenzo was finally able break Marc Marquez’ four race winning spree during the 2013 Hertz British Grand Prix – the 12th round of the MotoGP championship.

Marquez‘s participation in the race was uncertain after he suffered a high speed crash during the morning warm-up session, dislocating his left shoulder when he impacted with the asphalt at 22.55 g.

However, the rookie was sitting in pole position( he broke the qualifying record by more than 1.3 seconds) on the grid and with just a painkilling injection to take him through the long 20 lap race.

It was Lorenzo who got the holeshot with Marquez hotly pursuing him, as the two pulled a 1.4 second gap over the rest of the field in just the opening lap.

For seventeen laps Lorenzo would lead the race never being able to open up a safe margin from the Repsol Honda rookie , who kept the Yamaha rider squarely in his sights.

With just two laps to go Marquez made his move, diving down inside on Lorenzo at Brooklands, to take the lead, but the Yamaha rider retaliated on the next lap with his own pass at Vale as the final lap came up.

Once again Marquez picked him off, but going into Luffield and just two corners from the end, he ran slightly wide which allowed Lorenzo to suff his M1 through – the two would touch - as they raced head-to-head to the wire, where the reigning world champion would score his fourth seasonal victory by a 0.081s margin.

Dani Pedrosa would take a highly disappointing third place.

The Repsol Honda veteran uncharacteristically had a bad start (5th on the grid) and got caught behind three slower riders, but in two laps he already disposed of the them and began racing after the two front runners who were more than two seconds ahead of him, he caught them, but the efforts of the chase had put a huge strain on his tires and while he stuck to his title rivals he was never in the fight.

Valentino Rossi took another fourth place after battling again with a tenacious Alvaro Bautista – that duel also went to the wire, and the Italian won it by a mere 0.065s.

Stefan Bradl’s decision to run a soft tire cost him. The German rider was unable to stay with Rossi and Bautista, and he faded to a lonely sixth.

Home hero Cal Crutchlow could only take seventh. Three crashes – two in the same practice session that left him with a very swollen right arm and abrasions, and a third in warm-up, left the Coventry man with the wrong set-up and an undermined confidence.